Here is a quote from the IPS-1 Review from Audioholics today, no doubt about Randy:

"As with the Emotiva MPS-1, the IPS-1 displays channel status with LEDs which, when operating normally, will illuminate blue or will turn red during fault conditions. Gone, however, was the very thoughtful and costly soft clipping circuitry which was basically inactive in all but the most demanding operating conditions. The reason being is Emotiva fielded numerous calls from MPS-1 users whose listening habits bordered on sheer insanity managing to shut their amplifiers down using moderately efficient highly reactive 4-ohm tower speakers in large listening rooms. Because of this, Emotiva decisively removed the soft clipping circuit so these users could rejoice in the sonic bliss of speaker compression and constant amplifier clipping while they enjoy their compressed MP3 downloaded music from Napster."

Make of that comment what you will. Looks like they forgot to mention that the MPS-1 just was underpowered. This is kind of out of character for Audioholics...perhaps they didn't get the whole story from Emotiva.

Quote:Here is a quote from the IPS-1 Review from Audioholics today, no doubt about Randy:

"As with the Emotiva MPS-1, the IPS-1 displays channel status with LEDs which, when operating normally, will illuminate blue or will turn red during fault conditions. Gone, however, was the very thoughtful and costly soft clipping circuitry which was basically inactive in all but the most demanding operating conditions. The reason being is Emotiva fielded numerous calls from MPS-1 users whose listening habits bordered on sheer insanity managing to shut their amplifiers down using moderately efficient highly reactive 4-ohm tower speakers in large listening rooms. Because of this, Emotiva decisively removed the soft clipping circuit so these users could rejoice in the sonic bliss of speaker compression and constant amplifier clipping while they enjoy their compressed MP3 downloaded music from Napster."

Make of that comment what you will. Looks like they forgot to mention that the MPS-1 just was underpowered. This is kind of out of character for Audioholics...perhaps they didn't get the whole story from Emotiva.

On the one hand, I really do like my LPA-1. I feel that it does add enough 'audio value' to my system to be worth the $499 cost. I've not had any shutdown problems driving bi-wired (nor regular wired) M80's, and I love the added presence and headroom it added over my AVR.

But on the other hand, I don't really know if they're as much of a 'straight shooter' as they make out to be. My opinion is that I do believe that they are trying to focus on their customers, but a few of the cost-saving measures of their products are slowing bubbling up.

I know first hand that the LMC-1's software is basically at a beta level. These rumors here of the MPS being underpowered (let's be fair, it *could* be something weird about M80's, and not the MPS). The screwed-up DD DSP implementation of the LMC-1. Quiet rumors of similar 'quirks' with the MMC-1. Comments of, "well, they (the LMC/MMC) just have a higher noise floor than you're used to". These discussions are making me a bit nervous of the company, even though I *want* to like their product and be an 'evangelist' for them.

That Audioholics reviewer obviously had a conversation with someone at Emotiva, "yeah, we used to have that great feature but we got so many complaints that we removed it." I find it hard to believe that a company would change a whole product line because of just a few users. And also, if this problem was specific to M80's, we'd hear more about it here. Just sort of an odd situation.

Whether the 'dumb, deaf MP3 blaster' comment is from Emotiva or Audioholics, we'll never really know. That is certainly the kind of comment that's pretty shocking to read in a review where one would hope for a fair and balanced opinion.

I've had some great email correspondence with Lonnie, apparently their senior tech. He seems a great guy. Very insightful and helpful. The posts by the president, Dan Laufman, over on AVS and AV123 also seem to show that they care. But at some point it becomes put-up-or-shut-up.

Quote:ya, I was a bit taken back by that comment.

Right now I am not impressed by either company. It almost sounded like Emotiva was getting defensive about their amps and started to trash their former customer?

This is very interesting and a bunch of bull$hit, I guess I'm done looking up to Gene and the guys.

First of all, I don't listen to compressed MP3's, heck, I don't even have an mp3 player, so not sure what left field that comment originated.

It was the owner, DAN, that asked me to borrow an Ipod from someone to hook directly to the amp, to rule out the Denon. He thought the pre-outs of the Denon were clipping and shutting down the MPS-1. The Ipod does not have enough power to use, and Lonnie from Emotiva even said it was a stupid test.

Also, if you read Gene's original review of the MPS-1 he had THE SAME PROBLEM in a LARGE room at LEVELS that were NOT INSANE.

His own words were that the soft clipping limiter was kicking in PREMATURELY, AND, he said that the rating of 300 watts into 4 ohms was inaccurate by his measurements. He was hoping that Emotiva would change their documentation after reading his review.

He reported that his amp was shutting down prematurely, and they sent him a new unit that he was able to play at 120dB for hours and hours at one of his Columbian relative parties with no problems.

Guess what, I'm sure they disabled the clipper so he must have been listening to COMPRESSED CLIPPED DISTORTED music.

What a joke.

This is exactly why I'm dealing with Odyssey Amps right now, Klaus is not full of $hit and WILL admit OR FIX his product if it is not operating as stated.

Until these people do an APPLES to APPLES comparison and run 80's in a 8,000+ cubic room and it shuts down at NOT INSANE levels, something is wrong.

Good lord dudes, if an amp does not have enough capacitance to fill dynamic peaks for a few explosions while watching terminator at comfortable volumes, and then shuts off, something is wrong.

I also forgot to mention that Gene said their documentation is misleading about the capacitors. Since they are wired in "Series" they are actualy 1/4th the mentioned rating. 12,000uF is a big difference than 48,000uF.

Very good, Peter, and you're certainly to be commended for your modesty in claimimg that you had to google to learn the effective capacitance of capacitors configured in series. Yes, it is an interesting point, and I read both the latest Audioholics test and the earlier one(which I'd never studied)to see what the numbers were. Incidentally, I agree that Gene's gratuitous comment about users who had experienced problems was a bit disappointing. It may be that the Emotiva folks didn't give him all the facts.

Back to the capacitance numbers, as Gene pointed out in his earlier test, claiming the total capacitance per channel without clearly indicating that they were in series(for the valid technical reason of increasing the voltage capability beyond what the individual capacitors could handle)was misleading. It should be noted that Emotiva is far from being the only manufacturer playing the capacitance hype game. There appear to be both abuses by merely referring to the total of the individual caps and by implying(or stating outright)that more capacitance than necessary brings some mysterious benefits. The rule of thumb that can be applied is that 50uF per watt is ample and much more than that simply wastes money and takes up space. From that standpoint the Emotiva capacitance is fine and isn't the cause of their problems. Again of course, the effective capacitance should be stated, rather than the misleading total number which apparently is used to impress the innocent.